It’s Sunday and we’re up before the sun, laying side by side with our backs flat on the shaggy carpet in the living room. Blankets cover our bodies and I place a sleep mask over my eyes. He opts for his blue bandanna. We breathe deeply, our arms intertwined and hands clasped. I try to listen to every sound, but it is so early the rest of the world is still sleeping. There’s just the humming of the refrigerator and the swooshing of our breaths filling the space around us. In and out. With my third eye I see flashes of light and a never ending dark night sky. And when the time comes to fully return to my senses and this body in this world, I will see a sky colored in pink, purple, and orange, and he will still be wrapped up tight in a blanket and I will look back at him and wonder how it is that the sight of him can rival a sunrise.

I live for these little moments when I can feel so full and whole and safe.

For slow Sundays and sunrises and plans of forts while drinking coffee and making pancakes. For the every day magic and the humming of the refrigerator that keeps me believing life is worth living. Love is worth giving.

I thank these four walls. These walls I painted icy white while drinking beer and crying tears of joy that I was getting a clean slate. A chance to start over. To let go of the past. To move out of the darkness into light (and quite literally). These walls, which bore witness as I grew past the shell, filled in my bones, made my skin taut with hope. These walls I decorated with art and reclined my back on after long days I pray would soon end.

These walls have been my friend.

My cocoon where I transformed and manifested everything I have now.

I spend a moment thanking them, then take the curtains down, pick up the last box, and go in search of more magic and light.